


"Calculus of Variations"

by Pragnificent (PragmaticHominid)



Series: Identically Different AU [10]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Anal Sex, Bottom Will, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Will, Hannibal Loves Will, Hannibal is Not a Cannibal, Implied Suicide Attempt, M/M, Role Reversal, Serial Killer Will Graham, Will Graham is a Cannibal, Will is a Mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-03 09:50:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12745920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PragmaticHominid/pseuds/Pragnificent
Summary: Will leaves Hannibal, bound to the basement work table and missing pieces of himself, and flees.A year later, Hannibal finds him again.Alternate version of the Identically Different AU.(Happy Ending and no major character death, but mind the violence).ByJoveWhatASpend gets credit for this idea.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ByJoveWhatASpend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ByJoveWhatASpend/gifts).



> This is kind of an AU of "Le Meilleur Des Mondes Possibles," which is itself an AU of the Identically Different AU. 
> 
> However, it is not necessary to read "Le Meilleur Des Mondes Possibles" to understand/enjoy this story.

Hannibal cannot lift his head high enough to see Will, down at the other end of the stainless steel work table, but he listens closely and follows the fall of Will’s steps on the basement’s concrete floor.

Will comes to a stop and Hannibal feels the touch of his hand, the skin damp and very hot, against his ankle as Will rolls up the cuff of Hannibal’s pants. That touch proceeds nothing good, Hannibal knows perfectly well, yet he allows his mind to dwell on it, turning the sensation over in his mind like a precious stone, and it serves as something of a distraction from the slash of pain that cuts across the back of his ankle when Will’s blade slices through his Achilles tendon.  

“Are you afraid I might try to run from you, Will, now that I know the truth?”

Will comes back into view. He pushes sweaty hair out his face with a hand that is not entirely steady, and then looks down at Hannibal. Hannibal sees the spasm of conflicted emotions flicker across Will’s face with a frenetic energy before his expression settles on a placid phony friendliness.

“No,” he says, the gravity of his voice in contrast with his cheery expression. “You won’t ever get up from this table.”

Hannibal understands this, but he does not desire that Will should see distress on his face, and so his own expression remains as serene as still water.

“You are not in control of this, you know,” Hannibal tells him. “You have temporary control over only my body, and that you achieved through…” He pauses, considering what framing of the needle and the chain that has tethered Hannibal for the last three nights might best shame Will. “… unsporting means,” he finishes. “You are not in control of my mind or of how I feel about you. You will never have control over these things, Will.”

“You’re a poor listener,” Will tells him, but the words come a little too fast and have just the slightest frantic edge to them. “What should we do about that?”   

The brush of Will’s fingers against the curl of his ear is almost a caress, though it last for less than a second. Then Will grasps his ear, folding it down and holding it tightly, and the knife moves and there is a rasping pain as the blade cuts through skin and cartilage, followed by the warmth of flowing blood against Hannibal’s skin.

The vacancy left in the wake of Will taking his ear away is strange, but Hannibal keeps his face impassive. He focuses on understanding exactly what he should expect from the rest of this, and on detaching himself emotionally from those expectations. 

It seemed possible, at certain points during Hannibal’s stay in this basement, that Will might simply kill him, as quickly and mercifully as might be managed, but he understands now that Will intends to make things difficult for him beforehand; he cannot, Hannibal understands, help it.

He says, “Your fear is riding you hard, Will. I can’t imagine what that’s like.”

There is a split second in which Will’s countenance is that of a small boy who has been stuck, unexpectedly, across the face. It flickers away, and Hannibal sees a black, desperate rage take its place.

Then the false, friendly smile is back, and Will tells him conversationally, “I hadn't thought that you were stupid, Hannibal, but maybe I was wrong about that.”

Will circles around to Hannibal’s left side, and Hannibal feels Will’s hand on top of his own, carefully unballing the fist and drawing his fingers straight. Hannibal does not resist; that is not the way in which he has decided to fight back.

“Let me lay it out for you,” Will continues, and there is a sudden wrenching sensation as he dislocates Hannibal’s ring finger. The blade cuts easily through flesh and sinew. “You are getting nothing of what you want. Do you understand that?”

“That’s unsubtle, Will. Artless. I’m beginning to get a sense of what your finished work looks like, comparing this to some of the tableaus in our unsolved files, and in all honesty I'm disappointed but not surprised at how hackneyed this entire proceeding is shaping out to be."

Will snorts disgustedly and steps out of his line of sight.

Hannibal wonders, when he feels Will’s hand tug at the waist of his pants, if Will intends to take this farce to its greatest extreme by emasculating him. He fears the prospect no more than he fears anything else that he anticipates happening, but there is something uniquely disquieting about the idea of Will reaching between his legs and touching him, but only for the sake of facilitating the work of the knife.

But Will only shifts the waist of Hannibal’s pants down slightly, revealing more of his abdomen. The knife traces its way across the center of hs belly, starting just below the base of his ribcage and trailing down to stop a few inches above his groin. It draws a thin trickle of blood, like an artist laying down a sketch before inking in the lines.

Will moves away from the table. He is doing something, moving things around, but Hannibal can’t see what.

“‘You’re a poor listener, let me cut off your ear,’” Hannibal mocks, as though speaking to himself. “‘Let me prove that I don’t feel anything for you by taking away the finger on which you might wear a wedding band.’

“Maybe,” he suggests when Will comes back into sight, “you could do better if you calmed down a bit. Will, I don’t think you are thinking very clearly. That’s stifling your creativity.”    

“Oh?” Will says. He begins to lay out the things that he is carrying on the wheeled work table that stands next to Hannibal’s head; spices, a bottle of olive oil, a plate with a set of cutlery. He goes away again and comes back a few moments later with an electric skillet.

Suddenly, Hannibal begins to worry that he might not be able to maintain his composure through all of this after all.

For the first time since he woke up in the basement, he begins to feel truly frightened.


	2. Chapter 2

Will has no formal surgical training, but he has butchered more animals than he could even begin to recall, and many times he has practiced the skills he utilizes now on living and dead human flesh. Everything about this feels markedly different than any of those other times, but he persists regardless.   

The incision is neat and clean, despite Will’s shaky hands. He shifts the stomach to the side carefully, and reaches beneath the liver to attach a pair of forceps just above where he intends to cut. There is very little blood when he lifts the kidney from inside Hannibal’s abdomen.

That Hannibal barely flinches makes the entire process easier than it might have been. In Will’s experience the pain and existential horror of being opened up in this way is usually enough to undo anyone, but Hannibal remains not only conscious and lucid, but infuriatingly implacable.   

It’s only when Will begins to go through the pageantry of preparing the kidney for the skillet, explaining the work to Hannibal as he strips away the membrane that covers the organ and slices it into pieces, that something other begins to bud in Hannibal.

It’s what Will has been after from the start, of course, that growing dread. He set out to provoke atavistic terror and wounded hurt, to instill in Hannibal a sense of betrayal so profound that it would compel the stubborn old man to disavow every claim that he has made about Will and Will’s fundamental nature and his feelings in regards to Will. Now, watching that dread bloom into nauseous, terrified disgust as Will lays the meat across the electric skillet to begin to fry, his own emotions grow even more fraught and muddled than before.

There is something remarkable about the way that Hannibal struggles with his feelings. He is not, Will understands with some resentment, someone who is accustomed to being afraid, and perhaps he has never been as badly frightened as he is now. It’s a strange thing for Hannibal, that helpless fear, and Will would like to be able to tell himself that invoking it instills in him a quiet sense of power.

That would, however, be too great a lie to swallow.

If Hannibal was only feeling that desperate wounded disappointment it would be alright. Seeing him feeling that way bothers Will more than he wants to admit, but he believes that it is something that he could power through. Stomping down his instinct towards pity is, for Will, a long standing habit.

But it is disgust that Hannibal is battling with, above all else, and strangely that disgust is not entirely for Will or what Will has done. Hannibal is struggling with something inside of himself, too, something that all of this has brought to the surface, and Will is... curious about that, and ashamed, because if things had not gotten as twisted as they have it would still be his purpose to help Hannibal take that feeling out and explore it until he understood what it meant, and he knows that he would have done a good job of it and that Hannibal would have benefited from his care.

That he is doing something different - that he is applying this other skillset to someone whom he knows and who knows him, and who has relied upon him for support - makes him feel as though there are wasps crawling beneath his skin, and -

And the smell of cooking meat is very strong now.

“I am going to vomit,” Hannibal tells him, almost as a courtesy.

Will is quick with the waste basket. There is just enough give in Hannibal’s binds for him to raise himself up enough to lean his head over the can.

It is hard for Will to keep from retching in sympathy.

Will has had his appendix out, and he knows that even a small and healing incision can inspire bad pain from a poorly planned movement or even a simple cough. Against Will’s wishes, his imagination extrapolates from that, envisioning what agony it must be, to have your body gag and convulse when you have already been laid open. He does not want to allow that awareness of Hannibal’s pain inside of him - has worked so hard, for decades, to learn how to shut out that kind of pain - yet it is under his skin now, hurting him too.

But more than that pain, it is the shame that undoes Will. If not for that shame, he might have been able to finish it.

Breathing hard, Hannibal lowers himself back onto the table. Will finds a wash cloth and wipes Hannibal’s mouth for him, and it will only be much later that Will realizes that if he’d wanted to Hannibal might have taken the opportunity to bite him quite badly.

Hannibal does not ask for water, but Will knows that he wants it, so he brings him a cup with a straw, and another container to spit into after he rinses his mouth.

When the glass is empty, Will takes it back to the work sink. He studies himself for a long moment in the mirror that hangs there.

He turns back and sees that Hannibal is weeping. They are bitter tears, and they flow freely, cutting riverlettes in the blood around the vacant space where his ear used to be.

Will tells himself, _I will use this to hurt him even more deeply,_ but when he says, “Hey now,” and lays his hand on Hannibal’s arm, it does not sound like mockery.

Hannibal jerks away from his touch, as far as the shackles will let him.

“Get on with it,” he growls. Then he spits in quick succession, “Coward. Bully. Pig.”

 _You wanted this,_ Will thinks to himself. _This is just what you wanted him to do- or at least, it is close enough._  

The shame is a heavy stone in his gut and the pain tears at his skin with its teeth, trying to burrow under, but then a thought comes to him with all the hopeful brilliance of the north star.

_You've won. You can go ahead and kill him now, and this will be overwith._

Except that Will hasn't won.

Already, Hannibal is regaining his composure. His disgust for the situation and for Will has not faded, and his eyes still shimmer, but the panic attack - if that's even what it was - is done.

Hannibal looks up at Will, and he is no longer frightened. The fear, in fact, has been replaced by a species of pity.

 _He’s inhuman,_ Will thinks, panicking completely now. _He's a monster._

“It's alright, Will,” Hannibal tells him, and even though Will knows that he is being emotionally manipulated, that Hannibal is trying to hurt him in return, his voice is nonetheless utterly sincere. “None of this makes any difference. You do whatever pleases you, just understand that it won't change the way I think about you.”

A pause, then Hannibal says, “Your lunch smells like its burning.”

“Stop it,” Will says. His reaches into his box of tools and his hand finds the Spyderco knife. Unfolding the hooked, slashing claw of a blade with a hard flick of his wrist, Will presses it against the edge of Hannibal’s throat. Its razor sharp tip draws a bead of blood.

A normal person, Will knows, would shy away from the knife. A normal person would press his chin against his chest desperately, and it would be necessary to grasp him by the hair or the underside of the jaw to pull his head back to expose the throat.

Hannibal, however, is not normal. He tilts his head back, baring more of his neck, and studies Will's face. His breathing is steady.

“I love you, Will,” he says.

 _Hannibal doesn’t really mean that,_ Will tells himself. _He’s realized that the idea of killing someone who cares about me is upsetting, so he’s lying._

But Will knows that, though Hannibal is deliberately exploiting his weaknesses, it is nonetheless the truth as Hannibal understands it.   

Will realizes that he has been silent for too long, and that his silence tastes like victory to Hannibal.

He snaps, “Shut up. I'll cut your fucking tongue out.”

 

“You don't have to be afraid of being loved, Will, or of being understood. And I know that you don't love me yet, but you could if you decided -”

The line Will slices across Hannibal’s throat wells red, but it is shallow. Hannibal blinks, mulling over the fact that he is not yet dead. 

Will takes several uneasy steps backwards, ready to flee. Then he comes back.

With a quick jerk he unplugs the skillet. He takes a short, shaky look inside Hannibal’s incision, his finger tips resting on the chilly skin at the edge of the cut, checking for bleeders he missed or that might have started bleeding again.

Will listens for Hannibal to call out as he walks away, but he remains silent, though Will feels his watchful eyes on him as he climbs the stairs.

 

To Hannibal, there is vindication in seeing how difficult he has been able to make this for Will, though he does not at any point consider the possibility that Will’s retreat means that he will be allowed to live. He assumes that Will will be back to finish the job a soon as he’s had a few private minutes upstairs to compose himself.

But as the time ticks by, Hannibal begins to list other possibilities. He wonders if Will is drinking again - if he intends to get blackout drunk to forget the problem in his basement. It does not seem entirely impossible, as well, that Will might be absorbed in the task of killing himself. If either is the case, then Hannibal has been left to die down here alone, and he wonders how long it will take.

The basement door has been left open, and after a period of perhaps ten minutes Hannibal can hear Will moving around again. There are footsteps in entry hall, and the front door opens and then closes.

 _He’s going on the run,_ Hannibal thinks, with a sudden dumbfounded certainty, _and he’s left me behind like this._

Hannibal’s eyes start to burn again, and he makes no effort to hold back the tears.

 

Will gets his bug-out bag from the closet and he empties the safe, cramming in stacks of cash and jewelry and false papers with a jerky, frantic efficiency. He imagines that there are things that he is forgetting, that he will regret not having later, but then he thinks about possibility that if he takes too long Hannibal might die assuming he has been abandoned.

“Fuck it,” he says to himself, and gets moving again.

He calls 911 from the driveway. “My husband fell down the basement stairs,” he tells the operator. “He’s unconscious and bleeding. Please come.” Will gives her the address, then he sits the phone down on the ground carefully to make sure that they can follow the GPS signal if they need to.

Then Will gets in his car and drives away.

 

When he first hears the sirens coming in this general direction, Hannibal does not engage in the fantasy that they might be for him. Were he given to that kind of pointless whimsy he never would have been able to endure what Will has done to him so calmly.

Hannibal closes his eyes and focuses on keeping his heart-rate steady as the sound draws closer. He feels very cold. His body is shaking all over, and that hurts him in every place that he has been cut but especially his stomach, and he cannot seem to will himself to stop.

There are perhaps two minutes of black blankness, in which he falls into unconsciousness.

When Hannibal becomes aware of the world again, it is to the sound of multiple heavy feet on the steps. He sees the horror and confusion on the faces of the EMTs as they pause to take in the tableau, and it is such an absurd thing that Hannibal wants to crack a joke, but his brain feels too sluggish to come up with something. He supposes that they probably wouldn’t like anything he thought up anyway.

The world goes blurry for a little while, though not entirely black, and when he focuses again there is a woman leaning over him, asking questions. He has the sense that she is holding his hand, squeezing it for the sake of giving him comfort, but he is annoyed with her because she is not the person he wants to be here with him.

“Where is your husband?” she’s asking. “Is he safe?”

“Who?” he says. The woman’s face swims above him, as insubstantial as smoke. The only important thing about her is the question she asked, and Hannibal cannot seem to parse it.

“The man who called this in. Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” he says, or perhaps only imagines saying, “but I am going to find out.”   


	3. Chapter 3

A year later, and though Hannibal walks with careful deliberation, leaning on the cane with every other step forward, there is the grace of the hunter about him as he follows the figure through the crowd. People watch him, overtly and from the corners of their eyes, as he makes his way forward, noting the limp, the missing finger, the vacancy where an ear ought to be, everything visible that he has lost, but only the canny ones see in the intensity of his stare that he has found something else again.   

Will is just ahead of him.

Hannibal follows him, quite deliberately, into a quiet alleyway, though he knows that it may be a trap. The air is redolent with the scents of cat piss and rotting seafood.

Will waits for him in the shadows. When he steps forward Hannibal sees that he is empty-handed, but knows that this means very little. He looks Hannibal over, top to bottom, and then he draws closer.

He touches Hannibal’s face, tentatively at first, and despite everything Hannibal’s instincts insist with an unshakable certainty that this is _right_ , that this is _home_ , this feeling of Will’s skin against his own.

But it makes no difference. Even as Hannibal leans into the touch he finds that it does nothing to soothe the vindictive outrage roiling in his guts.

 

When Will’s fingers creep uncertainly towards the scarred void where Hannibal’s ear used to be, Hannibal catches him by the wrist and slams him against the brick wall, pinning him.

Will tries to pull away, but Hannibal's hold is inexorable, and then he sees the flash of metal in Hannibal’s other hand and feels the press of the linoleum knife against his belly.

A workman’s tool, brutal and artless. Phallic. And so Will knows that the fire still burns.  

“What should I take from you?” Hannibal wonders speculatively.

Will holds his gaze - defiant. “I gave up my entire life for you.”

There has, in the last year, been little opportunity for Will to hide from himself; he has been alone with his feelings for a very long time and he understands them. Will knows what he wants.

And so, when Hannibal does not relent - when he feels the bite of the blade break his skin - Will says, “You ought to eat my heart; it’s yours already.”

Hannibal’s face curls up into a snarl, but something like hope flashes in his eyes. Will feels the future balanced precariously on the head of a pin.

“Take whatever it is you want from me,” Will tells him, so Hannibal does.

Hannibal’s hand shifts to the collar of Will’s jacket and he pulls Will’s body up against his own. He kisses Will, hard, and while that is happening Will’s fingers close around Hannibal’s own, prying them back gently from the handle of the knife. It clatters to the ground and is forgotten.

Will is breathing hard when they pull apart. His heart is a frantic bird, caught in the cage of his ribs, but he wants more.

He is badly afraid that Hannibal will hurt him, but the prospect that he won’t - that Hannibal will simply leave now, and there will be nothing else between them - shakes him far more deeply.

“I have a room,” Will breathes into Hannibal’s remaining ear.

 

Will closes the door to the hotel room and engages the locks.

He turns to face Hannibal. Meeting his eyes is a challenge, and after a few seconds Will lets his head drop.

“You can hurt me, if you want to,” Will tells him. “I won’t stop you.”

“Undress.”

Will does as he is told. His hands tremble as he undoes the buttons on his shirt, though if it is from fear or eagerness even he himself doesn’t know.

Will expects to be brutalized. To be punished.

He knows that Hannibal has it in him to hurt him very badly, in a thousand different ways, and he knows that he deserves it.   

But Hannibal's hands on his body are worshipful.

He touches Will… everywhere. He does not allow Will to touch him.

Will lays on his back and feels Hannibal’s hands moving over him, feels Hannibal’s mouth on his skin. He feels the fear flowing slowly out of his body, as though blood from a hundred tiny cuts. In its wake, the guilt is more acute than ever.

Hannibal goes slowly and with a nearly infinite patience, and it all means something - those careful caresses, Hannibal’s weight on top of him as he enters Will and begins to thrust with a hyper-focused and nearly silent intensity, his breathing steady directly behind Will’s ear. Will fights against the desire to moan, embarrassed of his body’s own reactivity when Hannibal is so perfectly in control.

He brings his hand to his mouth and clamps down on the flesh beneath his thumb, struggling to keep quiet, but Hannibal says, “No,” his voice only a little breathless, and gently he pulls Will hand away. Hannibal takes both of Will’s hands by the wrists and pins them behind his back.

In substitution, Will worries his lower lip between his teeth until blood blooms to paint his mouth red, but it is not enough, and now he is crying out, repeating Hannibal’s name like a mantra as he presses his forehead against the mattress and balls his captive fists. His cock is hard beneath him, painful, the rhythm of Hannibal’s thrusting hips rubbing it against the blankets, and Will wants to reach down and touch himself, but Hannibal’s hold on his wrists is inexorable, and he grinds out, “Hannibal, _please_ -”

He does not let Will go, but he repositions their hands so Will’s crossed wrists are caught beneath the cage of a single large hand, and with his other Hannibal takes Will’s cock in hand and works it, his surprisingly soft palm sliding back and forth around Will’s flesh.

Hannibal times his own climax to coincide with Will’s, and so they come to completion within a few seconds of one another. Will feels Hannibal’s weight settle more firmly over him as he leans over the nape of Will’s neck and breathes in his scent.

“Kiss me,” Hannibal says.

Will tells him, “I’m bleeding.”

“Kiss me,” he repeats, so Will twists his head around and meets Hannibal’s mouth with his own, knowing that Hannibal can taste the coppery flavor of his blood.

Eventually, Hannibal rolls away from him. Will turns onto his side and watches Hannibal, lying with his hands folded behind his head, elbows sticking out at sharp angles. Hannibal sighs, a quietly contented sound, and closes his eyes.

Yes,  the rest meant something, but it all pales next to having Hannibal beside him, basking in the afterglow, so entirely at peace.

It all provokes a terrible ache of loss. Will keeps himself quiet, but Hannibal seems to sense that he is crying. He turns his head to look at him, his expression inscrutable, and Will has a paranoid moment in which he wonders if Hannibal can  _smell_ his tears.

Hannibal doesn’t ask him what is wrong, but he catches Will by the hand and turns his forearm over to bear the underside of his wrist. He noticed the marks earlier, of course, but he studies them closely for the first time now, running the ball of his thumb over the razor slash scars, the disorderly rows of hesitation cuts. They are fairly fresh, those scars, and bits of scab still cling to the deeper ones.

“What is this?” Hannibal asks, casting his eyes up at Will.

“A mistake,” Will tells him. “That’s all.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I wanted to…” Will begins, and the word on his lips is _atone_ , but he can't bring himself to breathe it out loud. “I don’t know. I wanted to _do_ something, you know? To make it better.” He glances up at Hannibal, tentative, and sees that he does not understand. Will goes on anyway, trying to explain. “But then I thought… I don't have any right. If I die for what happened, then it should be you who gets to do it.”

Hannibal lets go of him.

There is a long silence, and then Will asks, “Are you going to kill me?”

Hannibal says, “Will, I love you.”

“I know it,” Will says. “But are you going to kill me anyway?”

 

Hannibal doesn't answer. He watches Will, sees how the fear gets inside of him and reduces him. It brings back bad memories.

As though he can read Hannibal’s mind, Will says, “I'm not afraid.”

“Liar. You're shaking again.” Will is sweating, too, an acidic terror smell that bleeds from his pores, drowning out the good scent of their coupling.

“I won’t try to stop you,” Will repeats. “I won’t fight back at all.”

“Will -”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“I know that you are.”

Hannibal expected Will to be sorry, but he hadn’t thought that it would really matter - not for either of them. His relief in finding how wrong he was about that is incalculable.  

Will’s face twists up as the tears take him over. “I’m so fucking sorry for what I did,” Will gasps out between sobs, and Hannibal can barely understand him. He bites down on the knuckle of one of his fingers, trying to transfer some of that emotional turmoil into physical pain, more easily managed. Alarmed, Hannibal pulls Will’s hand away from his mouth before he can make himself bleed again.

He draws Will against his own body and holds him until he is quiet. It takes a long time, but that’s alright; he is in no hurry to let go.

When Will is calmer, Hannibal draws far enough away to look him in the eyes. “Stay with me, Will. Please. Don’t leave again.”

It’s difficult for Will, the guilt. Hannibal understands that well enough, though he himself almost never feels guilty.

Will’s hand shakes when he reaches out and touches the empty space where Hannibal’s ear used to be. He twines the fingers of his own hand around Hannibal’s, taking the measure of the vacancy that his knife left when he cut away Hannibal’s ring finger.  

Hannibal allows himself to be touched in this way.

“You love me,” Will says, as though repeating a phrase in a language he hardly knows.

“Yes,” Hannibal says.

Still struggling to understand that, Will says, “And you want me. You want me to stay with you, even though -”

“Yes, Will.”

“I think that I love you,” Will continues, but cautiously. “I don’t think it all would feel as difficult as it does if I didn’t love you. But it’s complicated, Hannibal, in my head. So many things get tangled around.”

“So emotional,” Hannibal says, a faint smile playing on his lips. The brilliancy of Will responding grin seems to make the world glow golden, but Will ducks his head, shy.

“But I do think I love you,” Will says, and Hannibal recognizes the daring that it takes for him to say that.

Hannibal cups his hand beneath Will’s chin and draws his head up gently until their eyes meet. “Then stay.”

Will looks back at him. There is something tight in his chest, conspiring with the thing in his throat that is blocking all the words that wish to escape.

He nods instead, firmly, and Hannibal pulls him back into his arms.


End file.
